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May 22, 2009

G42: Mets 5, Red Sox 3

Dice was strong out of the gate, retiring ten of his first 11 batters on only 37 pitches. But he faltered in the fourth, after a missed chance at a double play would have ended the inning with the Mets up only 2-1.

With one out, Carlos Beltran hit a ground rule double to right, Gary Sheffield (who had homered in the second) walked, and David Wright poked an RBI single to center. Jeremy Reed bounced to second. Dustin Pedroia flipped to Julio Lugo, but Lugo stayed anchored to the bag and threw flat-footed (and late) to first. The next two batters hit RBI singles and Boston trailed 4-1. (Dice: 5-5-4-2-4, 80)

The Sox got two back right away, though, on a errant throw from shortstop Ramon Martinez. Jason Bay had walked and been forced by J.D. Drew, and Mike Lowell doubled. Down by one run with one out, and Jason Varitek on second, Lugo fouled out to third and Jacoby Ellsbury flied out to center.

The same situation arose in the sixth. Still trailing 4-3, Boston had runners at second and third with one out. Lugo popped up to second and Ellsbury grounded out to shortstop. Boston went in order in both the eighth and ninth innings.

Ellsbury had an infield single in the first (17 games!). Varitek homered in the second. Pedroia had a double and single. Ortiz looked horrible against Santana, striking out three times and grounding into a double play.

Santana leads the National League in ERA and ERA+, is second in K/9 (11.4), and has the third best BB/K ratio. He allowed two or fewer runs in his first seven starts (an 0.78 ERA), before giving up four in his last outing.

Santana has a 5-2 record; in both of his losses, he allowed no earned runs. Since 2004, he has a 2.75 ERA, tops among all pitchers with at least 600 innings.

On the other side of the diamond is Matsuzaka. Dice began his season on April 9 with an average outing against Tampa (5.1-9-4-3-5, 100), then lasted only one inning against the A's (1-5-5-2-0, 43) on April 14 before going on the disabled list with shoulder fatigue/inflammation.

Dice made three rehab starts for Pawtucket, allowing nine hits and five walks in 11.2 innings, while striking out 14 K (1.59 ERA, 1.235 WHIP).

The injury-plauged Mets -- Carlos Delgado had surgery this past Tuesday to repair a labrum tear and remove a bone spur in his right hip joint, Jose Reyes has tendinitis behind his right calf and is day-to-day, Alex Cora has a torn ligament in his right thumb, Oliver Perez is out with right knee tendinitis -- have lost four in a row (scoring only six runs) and have dropped out of first place in the NL East.

The Mets are 21-19 and are 1.5 GB the Phillies. ... They have not hit a home run since May 13 -- 67.2 innings ago. ... The Stems last played the Red Sox June 27-29, 2006, when they were swept in three games at Fenway.

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David Wright Fun Facts: has MLB-best .463 batting average in May ... MLB-best .438 road average ... has 12-game hitting streak (.511) ... has reached base at least three times in each of his last seven games ... in San Francisco series (May 14-16), had nine hits, nine RBI and five stolen bases -- since 1920 (when RBI were first officially recorded), no player has ever had 9+ hits, 9+ RBI and 5+ SB over any three-game span.

I was also referring to the look of the hat itself, which they just showed. Not my bag, baby. But yeah, what the freak? I think the stars/stripes hats may have also been worn on 9/11 last year (as every team did.)

Isn't treating 9/11 like a national holiday contributing to the whole "letting the terrorists win" thing? I mean, I don't give a crap obviously, but still.

Usually it's the "after 8 innings" stat that's brought up, and it's misleading, because most times you'll win if you're up after 8. But it def. says something about our sweet pen that we're undefeated when winning after SIX. I bet some teams have some pretty bad records in that situation. Relatively, that is.

Isn't treating 9/11 like a national holiday contributing to the whole "letting the terrorists win" thing? I mean, I don't give a crap obviously, but still.Considering how many man-hours and tubes of toothpaste have been lost at our nation's airports in the last 8 years, I think the terrorists have already scored a resounding victory.

Hey I read the long article about their little love affair. If that girl was a complete ogre, I'd believe he was madly in love with her. And if Henry was a homeless dude, I'd believe she was madly in love with him. Fuck celebrities and rich and beautiful people.

Hey, maybe they're the only two in the world. You're right. But I see a young beautiful person and an old rich person getting together, and I put the pieces together. Has nothing to do with which one is which gender, or if they're the same gender, by the way.

Jere, that is so offensive. If I didn't know better I'd think you were either 12 years old or a stupid wingnut. You put the pieces together? Human relationships are a little more complex than the pieces YOU can put together from what you see on TV.

L: My friends who were in NY at the time all say they and their friends rooted AGAINST the Mets in '86. I would think it would be the other way, but a lot were so anti-Mets then they couldn't root for them. My friend from Bronx puts it this way: "I never hated the Red Sox because I'd never met one Red Sox fan." SO all they knew was Met hate.

Harvey rooted for the Red Sox in 86, but probably because he knew I would kill him otherwise. Not sure who he would have rooted for if he was not married to me (for my money, not my looks, by the way) and living in New England.

I think he meant that pitchers shouldn't bat because they can get hurt. I assume he means AL pitchers who are not used to hitting.I realize this. I think the risk of injury from giving a AL pitcher 2 days of BP and 5-6 ABs over a season is pretty minimal.

I"m calling a psychologist tomorrow. I will prove this to all of you. What tips it off for me is the fact that people tend to hang out with their own age group. YOu go to college, you're not gonna meet a 90 year old and fall in love because there aren't any 90 year olds in your class. If you marry that person, it's because they have a lot of money. And they're marrying you because you're young and better looking than any of the 90 year old around you.

Adults hang around with adults. After a certain point in adulthood, people have relationships with people outside their age range. Many of my closest friends have spouses 10, 15 or 20 years older or younger than them. I have had relationships with people 17 years older than me.

I'm sorry to fall down on my earlier statement but that is just too much. As if being partners is "hanging out" with someone.

Ah but Amy, if either of them WERE rich or gorgeous, that would be why they were married (like my gorgeous sister and her rich husband) and that would be very sad and you would be a communist for saying so.

We started talking about John Henry and his wife (or soon to be wife).

She is not in college and he is not 90 years old. Unable to response to actual criticism of your ignorant opinions, you decide to move the goalpoats to something "silly" (I guess) and are now talking about college-age people marrying 90-year-olds.

Something has to be there to attract people to each other, I see both points.....But it is hard to beleive that the first thing that attracted her was his looks....People are attacted to power, money, personality and looks......I have heard John Henry speak, that rules out personality and I already ruled out looks, that doesn't leave much....

Thanks Allan. I was going to mention that, but was trying not to. I don't know what the age difference between John Henry and his partner is, but it doesn't look like so unusual. He's not a withered old geezer and she looks fully adult.

Honestly, a good-looking, smart and wealthy man like John Henry, whoever he is with, people would say she was in it for the money. I don't know him at all, but chances are he's aware of that pitfall and is factoring it in.

I don't know if I really want to walk into the crossfire here, but fuck it: I'm friends with a 48 year old woman, and would love to be able to have a relationship with her (I'm not because she lives in NC and she's rejected me (: ). I wouldn't want to marry her because I don't believe in marriage, but that's kinda irrelevant.Also, my dad's girlfriend for the last 8 years is 17 years younger than him, and I'm as certain as I can be from the outside that they just love each other. I've met plenty of people who are 10 or more years older than me, and have liked a lot of them, sexually or not, money and looks notwithstanding. These things do happen.

I'm not trying to fool anyone. John Henry is a rich old dude. His wife is a beautiful young girl. They didn't get together because she hangs out with baseball team owners on a regular basis and happened to choose him as the one with the best personality. Or because he hangs out at Club Paradise and hangs out with young girls post-divorce and thought she was the one with the most common interests.

9C, you think John Henry is not attractive? He is. Different kind of attractive than Theo, but still a very handsome man. And his quiet way of speaking can be very appealing. I'm not the only woman who can't stand the big macho types.

L: Look, I don't know what the hell to call females. I know you have said "lady" and "gal" are no longer the way to go And you told me that females have "taken back" the word "girl." I promise you, I'm trying to use female terms I know YOU are comfortable with because I'm not trying to insult either gender. SO, whatever you call her, that's what she is. A mature adult female who is not nearly as old as Henry.